Virtually Islamic Blog

Gary R. Bunt

Indonesia Elections 2019

I've been looking at the Indonesian elections, specifically coverage associated with social media issues:

David Fettling, ABC Australia,Indonesia's golput movement exposes Australian stereotypes of our nearest neighbour "Their number is unclear — while 30 per cent of Indonesians are predicted to golput, that figure doesn't measure those abstaining from political convictions rather than indifference. "But Jokowi appears to have underestimated the ability of disgruntled progressives to erode his political base; being young and networked gives golputers disproportionate social influence." [golput = "to refuse to vote for either Prabowo Subianto, a former Suharto general, or incumbent President Joko Widodo, who has made a series of concessions to both the existing political elite and conservative xenophobes. "] This is a very interesting article.Ross Tapsell, NYT, Opinion, ‘When They Go Low, We Go Lower’ "Indonesia’s leading investigative journalism magazine, Tempo, revealed late last year that both camps were relying on what the exposé called “shadow teams,” attacking each other using “fake news spread by proxies” — a form of “black campaigning that could not be carried out by candidates’ official teams.”"CNN, Joko Widodo: Has the shine worn off Indonesia's Obama? "Although polls suggest Jokowi, 57, is likely to win a second term, he's copped criticism from analysts and former supporters who say he has failed to deliver on issues such as human rights -- and compromised his values of pluralism to score political points."Time, Social Media Gets a Bad Rap in Elections, But Activists In Indonesia Are Using It to Boost Transparency "While many countries worry about the spread of false information and hateful rhetoric ahead of elections, the overwhelming popularity of social media in Indonesia may make it particularly vulnerable to the influence of misinformation. About half of the country’s 262 million people use Facebook, and 62 million people are active on Instagram. Indonesians also spend a lot of time online. People in the country use platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for an average of three hours and twenty-six minutes a day—the fourth highest rate of social media usage in the world. (By comparison, the global average time spent on social media daily is two hours and 16 minutes, and the average American spends two hours and four minutes social networking every day.)" Article profiles Kawal Pemilu, which monitors election and social media data in Indonesia.Jennifer Yang Hui and Pravin Prakash, The Diplomat, Fake News in India and Indonesia's Elections 2019 "In the final weeks before the presidential and legislative elections on April 17, the spread of fake news has spiked. According to data from the Indonesian Anti-Slander Society (MAFINDO), fake news (popularly termed “hoaxes”) have increased by 61 percent between December last year and January 2019. Most of the hoaxes are found on social networking platform Facebook. The Indonesian Ministry for Communication and Information Technology reported more than 700 election-related hoaxes in March 2019."Reuters,Explainer: Indonesia's election - what you need to know "This election has been fought out over social media as never before. So-called buzzer teams have proliferated, named for the buzz they aim to create, to spread propaganda on behalf of both Widodo and Prabowo, sometimes with fake accounts. "Al Jazeera, Indonesia: Election campaigning ends with massive ralliesFox News, Halal ink, giant ballots ready for Indonesian vote Wednesday "Election officials are providing more than 1.6 million bottles of halal-certified indelible ink for voters to dip a finger in after casting ballots at some 810,000 polling stations. The Election Commission estimates more than 17 million people are involved in ensuring the elections run smoothly, including volunteers, guards and registered witnesses for every polling station. But poster-sized ballots have drawn criticism as a challenge for elderly voters."Reuters/NYT, Fact-Checkers vs. Hoax Peddlers: a Fake News Battle Ahead of Indonesia’s Election "The Cekfakta ("checkfacts" in Indonesian) initiative brings together the non-profit fact-checking organization Mafindo and 24 news organizations that normally compete fiercely with each other during election campaigns. "